The Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) is in full sup­port of ef­forts to curb the sale of al­co­hol and is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to de­sign a pack­age of laws aimed at di­min­ish­ing its abuse. A state­ment is­sued by sec­re­tary gen­er­al Sat Ma­haraj said the SDMS sup­port­ed the de­bate fol­low­ing a pro­pos­al by Port-of-Spain may­or Louis Lee Sing to have bars closed or stop sell­ing al­co­hol af­ter mid­night.

The state­ment said: "While the in­tent be­hind the pro­pos­al is laud­able, the pro­pos­al it­self is re­ac­tionary and puni­tive in na­ture and be­cause it is re­strict­ed to a con­fined area, St James, its im­pact will be lim­it­ed." The SDMS made nine pro­pos­als to re­duce the side ef­fects of al­co­hol which it list­ed as road fa­tal­i­ties, do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, fam­i­ly break­down and low pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.

Among the pro­pos­als were to in­crease the num­ber of breathal­y­sers and its us­age by po­lice, ban al­co­hol ad­ver­tise­ments and spon­sor­ships and im­ple­ment a three-strike rule for dri­vers un­der the in­flu­ence.